A video window two meters high appeared before Zhao Chen.
Opposite was a vast figure with hair loose and disheveled, seated upon a broken throne of pitch-black.
He wore black armor, and in his hand was an iron sword of an old-bronze color.
His face could not be made out, for he wore a helm; only a pair of dark and gloomy eyes could be seen.
Zhao Chen knit his brows slightly.
He had heard something of it before: that the Demon King of the Demon King's line had a lifespan of several hundred years, had passed through a thousand hard fights, and had several times come near to losing his life.
Those who had seen him and lived said that the Demon King stood five meters high, and that the air about him was as a mountain of awful majesty.
That killing air could stifle any who stood before him.
Above all those two eyes of his: whoever looked into them could feel a cold that pierced the bone, and a violence that seemed about to tear the body apart.
But this time, why he could not tell.
Looking at this Demon King of rumor before him, Zhao Chen felt rather as though he looked upon an old man near his coffin.
"You are the Lord of the Owl Dragon?" The other spoke; his voice carried something of long weathering.
"I am," Zhao Chen answered.
Zhao Chen felt the other's gaze measuring him.
"Good," said the Demon King.
Zhao Chen did not take his meaning.
"Small though your body seems, I can feel the terrible power hidden within you. To be defeated by you is perhaps no bad ending," said the Demon King.
The Demon King paused, and said: "But you will face an enemy stronger yet. An enemy out of another world, holding power beyond your imagining. Whether you are ready for it, I do not know."
Another world?
Zhao Chen knit his brows, and said: "You mean… Order?"
Some color came into the Demon King's eyes: "You have heard of it too? Well enough, having come to this level, you would certainly touch upon such matters. That being so, I think you must be ready for it."
"How did you come to know of Order? Is the one behind you Order?" Zhao Chen asked at once.
"The one behind me?" The Demon King laughed aloud all of a sudden: "Behind a king there never stands anyone. I have only pursued every chance that might make me stronger. As for… when I came to know of Order… I forget… I cannot call it to mind. In the game between me and them, I lost. And in the end I fell to being a piece upon their board. But I do not repent of it. Well then. We have met; it is time we fought our last battle. You may take the Demon Castle. But only after you have beaten me!"
So saying, the Demon King cut the communication outright.
"Report: there is movement upon the Demon Castle." A petty officer cried out all of a sudden.
Charlotte looked at once, and enlarged before her the images taken by a stealth reconnaissance drone.
Zhao Chen saw that the surface of the Demon Castle had begun to change.
Great guns extended themselves one after another, and weapons of every model appeared before their eyes.
It was plainly a fortress of battle.
It seemed this King meant to have his last madness.
"Commander." Charlotte looked toward Zhao Chen.
Zhao Chen nodded slightly.
Charlotte opened the command channel at once: "All departments, all fleets, attend. Open the assault according to the plan laid down. The Demon Castle is to be taken, and with the least casualties possible!"
"Aye!"
What followed, Zhao Chen watched as a bystander might.
Round upon round of interstellar missiles fell like rain among the Demon Race's interstellar warships.
The space of the defensive line about the Demon Castle was pressed in, little by little.
That Lord-of-Terror-class Heavy Interstellar Battleship put forth her own powers as well, pouring her fire upon the Owl Dragon-line warships.
Above all that terrible vast bow cannon: at nearly every firing an Owl Dragon-line T5 interstellar warship was destroyed outright.
And at the same time, at the mounting of that vast bow cannon, with every firing there appeared visible cracks, one after another.
This Lord-of-Terror-class Heavy Interstellar Battleship was a defective article.
Given some ten years more, perhaps the Demon Race might truly have built a T6 interstellar warship of their very own.
But not now.
And it would not be this Lord of Terror.
Upon the thirtieth firing of the Lord of Terror's vast bow cannon, the mishap came at last.
The whole mounting blew apart; the thick bore was gone, and where the mounting had stood there was left only a collapsed pit.
With this mishap, it seemed as though something had come to the time when it ought to end.
Another round of saturation fire from the T6 Wrath-of-Heaven-class Heavy Interstellar Battleship.[1]
Broke open at last the star-shield of the T6 Lord-of-Terror Heavy Interstellar Battleship, and the attacks that followed fell like rain upon her hull.
Vast though that hull was, of eighty-odd kilometers, under this terrible assault it was in no long while riddled with a thousand wounds.
The interstellar missiles that followed went on greeting her.
Very soon this Lord of Terror stirred no more; the whole ship split into four and five, and black smoke rose from every part of her hull.
And at the bridge, a T5 Holy-Redeemer-class Heavy Interstellar Armored Heavy-Artillery Battleship, finding its chance, blew open a great hole.
Laying bare the outline of half a bridge, and that broken throne of which only half was left.
But the King who had once been there was gone.
Hard upon the Lord of Terror's fall came the Demon Castle itself.
Because the Demon Castle was built out of a whole planet, to destroy it utterly was hard indeed; but under the dense assault every one of its attack modules was destroyed.
Upon the surface, hardly the shape of any whole structure could be seen.
And from this time,
the Demon Castle star system campaign, which had lasted the better part of half a year, came to its end.
Though some remnants of the Demon King's army still dragged out a feeble breath, they could raise no wind or wave worth the name.
The Demon Race's age of the Demon King ended here.
A feast of victory was held thereupon.
The place chosen was within the Angel Race's borders, and the Angel Race had the charge of it.
"How is it that I do not see his lordship Zhao Chen, nor General Charlotte, nor Secretary Lilith?" The angel Tilia waited and waited, and never saw Commander Zhao Chen.
And yet the feast of victory had begun already.
She could only go over to the Owl Dragon officers and ask Chitong and the rest at their meal; the answer she got was that the three Owl Dragon chiefs would not attend this feast.
She saw besides several women drinking at this moment, with all the air of those who will not go home sober.
"It was… it was I who was betrothed to him first." Chu Xuan lay sprawled upon the table, and gave a drunken hiccup.
"What is that to anything? In those days… he… he… carried me off… at my wedding… the wicked man." Su Lan's eyes were half closed, as though she were recalling something.
Medusa beside them gave a slight smile, keeping her elegant bearing still, though the drink showed already in her face.
"There are men in whose fate there will never be only one woman or two."
"In truth… in truth… only to be able to look at him… is enough." Shen Bing had drunk but a few cups and was already somewhat dizzy; she looked at the wine in her cup as though she saw something there.
Xue Xiaoxiao looked at this company of women in her puzzlement, a great chicken leg in her left hand and a great pig's head in her right.
"What are you all talking about? How very odd you are. Come to that, why has the Commander not come? I was thinking to ask him when he would get me a T6 interstellar battleship!"